U.S. stocks ended slightly lower Thursday, falling just before the close to keep the Dow Jones Industrial Index below its all-time high. Mixed economic news kept the rally muted with investors appearing more accepting of federal budget cuts set to kick in Friday at midnight. Industry sectors in the S&P 500 were split between gainers and losers, with the best advance was a 0.4% rise for shares of materials companies despite declines for most commodities. Financial, consumer and technology stocks all yielded to the late sell-off to finish in the red.
Daily Data
After offering little reaction to economic reports that had the U.S. economy growing 0.1% in the final quarter of 2012 and weekly jobless claims falling by 22,000 to 344,000, Wall Street drew a small lift from a measure of Chicago-area manufacturing, which hit an 11-month high in February.
Gross domestic product grew at a 0.1%, up from a previously estimated 0.1% drop, revised figures from the Commerce Department showed. The median forecast of 83 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.5% percent gain.
Also, fewer Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, with jobless claims decreased by 22,000 to 344,000 in the week ended Feb. 23, the Labor Department reported. The median predicted among experts polled by Thomson Reuters called for 360,000 applications.
The Dow finished about 1.3% higher for the month, again stalling below its all-time high of 14,164.53, reached in October 2007. The S&P 500 closed out February with a 1.6% advance.
Commodities were mostly lower. Crude oil for April delivery settled 71 cents lower at $92.05 per barrel. April natural gas was up 5 cents to $3.48 per 1 mln BTU. April gold slid $17.50 to $1,577.70 per ounce while May silver fell 55 cents to $28.43 per ounce. May copper dropped 2 cents to $3.55 per pound.
Here's Where The U.S. Markets Stood At Day's End
- Dow Jones Industrial Average down 20.88 (-0.15%) to 14,054.49
- S&P 500 down 1.32 (-0.09%) to 1,514.67
- Nasdaq Composite Index down 2.07 (-0.07%) to 3,160.19
- Hang Seng Index up 1.96%
- Shanghai China Composite Index up 2.28%
- FTSE 100 Index up 0.67%
- (+) IFMI, Reports Q4 adjusted operating net income of $0.26 per share, up from $0.02 during the year-ago quarter. Revenue slips 1.2% year over year to $23.4 mln.
- (+) FARO, Q4 sales rise 4.7% to $80.7 mln, beating Street expectations by $12.7 mln.
- (+) PANL, Q4 EPS of $0.12 trails the Capital IQ consensus by $0.02 but revenue climbs 51% from year-ago levels to $28.1 and topping analyst forecasts by $1.7 mln.
- (+) NEO, Prices public offering of 2.85 mln shares of new common stock at $3.00 apiece, generating about $8.5 mln in gross proceeds.
- (-) ANW, Reports adjusted earnings of $0.07 per share, down from $0.16 per share in the year-earlier quarter and missing analyst forecasts by $0.11 per share. Revenue slipped 0.3% year over year to $1.73 bln, also trailing the Street consensus by around $20 mln.
- (-) JCP, Q4 net loss widens to $1.95 per share, missing analyst forecasts by $1.79 per share. Total sales fell 28.4% from year-ago levels to $3.884 billion, including the extra week in Q4 of 2012. Comparable store sales, excluding the 53rd week, declined 31.7%.
- (-) BSFT, Offered weaker-than-expected Q1 guidance, forecasting EPS of $0.02 to $0.12, trailing the analyst view by at least $0.22 per share. Projected revenue of $37 mln to $40 mln during the quarter ending next month also lags estimates by at least $3.62 mln.
- (-) GRPN, Forecasts Q1 revenue in a range of $560 mln to $610 mln, trailing the analyst consensus looking for $647.7 mln in revenue. Q4 net loss was unchanged from a year ago at $0.12 per share on $638.3 mln in revenue. The Street was expecting EPS of $0.02 on
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